1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home network based on a living network control protocol (LnCP), and particularly, to a method for generating a house code (HC) provided to each household to divide the households in a home network.
2. Description of the Background Art
A home network based on a living network control protocol (LnCP) and using power line communication (PLC) connects various kinds of digital domestic appliances such as a digital television, a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a washing machine, an electronic microwave, etc. to one another through a power line which suer through a power line which su digital domestic appliances control each operation by transmitting predetermined data through the power line.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a construction of the home network based on LnCP.
As shown in FIG. 1, the home network comprises: various digital domestic appliances 110 that each household 100 uses such as a digital television, a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a washing machine, an electronic microwave, etc.; a modem 120 connected to the plurality of digital domestic appliances 110 and having a preset HC for relaying data communication of the plurality of digital domestic appliances 110 by using the preset HC. A reference numeral 200 denotes a network manager installed at a management center, and a reference numeral 300 denotes a power line for supplying electricity to various kinds of electronic appliances including the plurality of digital domestic appliances 100.
In the modem 120 of the respective household 100, a same HC is preset and stored, and a different house codes is provided to each household 100.
The network manager 200 and the modem 120 are connected to each other through the power line 300, the network manager 200 and the digital domestic appliances 110 perform data communication by the PLC through the power line 300 and the modem 120, and the digital domestic appliances 110 perform data communication one another through the modem 120 and the power line 300.
For example, in case that the network manager 200 transmits a data to a digital domestic appliance 110 installed at a household 100, the home network constructs a data frame in advance. The data frame will be explained with reference to FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 is an example showing a data frame form of a PLC medium.
As shown in FIG. 2, the data frame includes a frame header composed of a header and a HC; a body having operation orders of the digital domestic appliances 110 and composed of a LnCP packet; a number of total bits; and a frame trailer composed of a cyclic redundancy checking (CRC) code and a code indicating an end of a frame.
If the data frame is constructed, the network manager 200 transmits the constructed data frame through the power line 300 by the PLC, and the transmitted data frame is received by the modem 120 connected to the digital domestic appliances 110 of each household 100.
The modem 120 which received the data frame extracts a HC from the frame header of the data frame and determines whether the extracted HC is consistent with a HC preset to itself or not. As a result of the determination, if so, the modem 120 transmits the received data frame to the digital domestic appliance 110 connected to itself. The digital domestic appliance 110 extracts the LnCP packet of the body from the received data frame and determines whether a predetermined order is given to itself or not. If the order is given to itself, the digital domestic appliance performs operations by the predetermined order, and if the order is not given to itself, the digital domestic appliance ignores the order.
In the meantime, in case that a predetermined data which will be transmitted to the network manager 200 by the digital domestic appliance 110 exists, the data is transmitted to the modem 120 and the modem 120 constructs a frame data with a predetermined data inputted from the digital domestic appliance 110 and the preset HC. The constructed frame data is transmitted to the network manager 200 through the power line 300.
Also, the digital domestic appliances 110 in each household 110 can control mutual operations by transmitting predetermined data one another. For example, a user can control operations of a boiler, an electronic microwave, a washing machine, etc., which are far away from a digital television with watching the digital television.
In the home network which controls operations of the digital domestic appliances 110 by transmitting predetermined data one another by the PLC on the basis of the LnCP, the HC is provided to each household 100 with a capacity of 4 bytes as a unique value for the households 100. The HC is designated for the households 100, stored at a header portion of all transmitted lower medium access control (MAC) frame, and continuously used.
However, the conventional HC is not necessary in sending and receiving data which control operations of the digital domestic appliances 110, and as the capacity of the HC increases, the thoughtput of the data decreases.
Also, to apply the HC to nations such as China where many households exist and the number of the households increases rapidly, the capacity of the HC has to be increased and the HC has to be changed later. That is, even if the HC is provided to each household with the capacity of 4 bytes currently, the capacity of the HC has the possibility of increasing to 6 to 8 bytes in accordance with the increase in the households. If the capacity of the HC becomes 6 to 8 bytes, a part corresponding to 5˜10% of a transmittance frame is consumed by the HC having no relation with operation data of the digital domestic appliances 110.